At my age I really don’t want to be pulling out my hair and doing things that make my blood pressure go off the charts.
I have just left an online briefing from DESNZ about their new tender for a four year biomass research programme which they say is aiming to fill knowledge gaps on things like the economics, life cycle GHG emissions, environmental trade-offs, sustainability criteria and policy options. The project is a £4 million, 4 year desk study. I had to leave the meeting because I didn’t want to combust online.
We have been here before. So many times that it hurts. With the DTI, DECC, BEIS and now DESNZ. Constantly gilding the lily. Trying to cement the evidence base before doing anything substantive. In my 30 years in this sector, I have witnessed the publication of tens if not hundreds of Government funded reports and witnessed the escalation in peer reviewed research papers on the subject. It should all point in one direction – forward into battle against climate change. But another four years? That’s a heck of a long time when the planet is warming and we are living with the consequences. We have no time to waste but instead of trying to take a forward step and make stringent efforts to adapt to or mitigate against climate change with biomass resources, DESNZ seem very satisfied to use tax payers money to commission another expensive desk study. It beggars belief.
We have been the recipient of DESNZ funding. The £37 million that was awarded by the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation (BFI) Programme should have been a watershed moment. The development of a unique set of demonstrator trial sites as part of the Biomass Connect project could and should have global significance. (It might still if follow up funding can be found from somewhere! £4 milllion would certainly help). Several other projects produced huge strides forward in machinery development, agronomic expertise, plant variety development and online tools for decision making. All of the 11 projects believed that the UK Government had finally listened to the Climate Change Committee and were rolling up their sleeves to assist our niche sector to grow and plant 700,000 hectares of home-grown biomass crops.
Unfortunately, we were duped. We waited for the incentives that would kick start the industry. The Biomass Strategy came and went. Nothing there. We were told to wait for the outcome of the Spending Review. Nothing there. We thought a change of Government might make a difference. Wrong again. We have talked and talked and presented No Brainer information to DEFRA and Forestry Commission officials. That resulted in zilch. Whatever happened to the Land Use Framework? Missing in action. Throughout the three year BFI projects, me and other project leaders communicated our concerns to our DESNZ pay masters but we were stonewalled. We wanted to make our concerns known in our commercialisation strategies and final reports but any statement that could be considered critical of DESNZ or DEFRA had to be omitted. No one would get paid unless DESNZ signed off the reports. So, what could we do? We were in a no win situation. Virtually all of the DESNZ officials involved in this programme have now moved on, but our small little niche sector is left picking up the pieces.
This current tender is a calamity for us. We had hoped for some informed policy intervention by 2025. This means that there won’t be any until 2031 or thereabouts. But of course, I don’t really believe it as the Government has never listened to anything that I and colleagues have said. I think DESNZ are burying their heads in the sand whilst slapping themselves on the back for doing something proactive. But from my point of view, all they are doing is kicking the tin down the road, but because the kick is poorly directed, it’s ended up deep in the long grass. Brilliant. What a waste of time and money.
